In recent years, several reports have highlighted the need for a national food policy that takes a comprehensive approach to addressing food systems (CAC, 2014; Levkoe & Sheedy, 2017; Martorell, 2017; UNGA, 2012). These findings suggest that, at the core, resilient food systems must be built on interconnected knowledge and experience that emerge from place-based interrelationships between human and ecological systems. Drawing on these important learnings, this commentary voices our hopes and concerns around the recent efforts of the Canadian Government to develop a food policy for Canada. While we commend the Government’s desire to “set a long-term vision for the health, environmental, social, and economic goals related to food, while identifying actions we can take in the short-term”, we caution any tendency to develop “best practices” that assume a universal, or “one-size fits all” approach to food policy development. We argue that Canada requires a set of contextual, place-based food policies that emerge from the grassroots, address local needs and desires, and build on the strengths and assets of communities.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Nelson, C., Levkoe, C. Z., Kakegamic, R., (2025), "The need for contextual, place-based food policies: Lessons from Northwestern Ontario", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.327)

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1. complexity
2. FOOD SYSTEMS
3. northwestern Ontario
4. place
5. policy

Original publication: Nelson, Connie; Levkoe, Charles Z.; Kakegamic, Rachel. "The need for contextual, place-based food policies: Lessons from Northwestern Ontario." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 5, no. 3, 2018, pp. 266-272. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v5i3.327. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.